First Person: London bell signals toll that we hope is complete

In the early 1970s, the city of London, Ohio, was an enclave of tranquillity amid a turbulent sea of American despair.

Isolated from the unrest, we in London — about 30 miles west of Columbus in Madison County — proceeded unaffected with our ancient summer rituals.

Umpires called balls and strikes at Little League games. The public pool drenched us in chlorine water as the music of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, Three Dog Night and the Grassroots blared from a jukebox.

In a word, life was “normal,” except for the bell.

The bell was the sole link between our haven and the upheaval — our bronzed reality.

The monument, as large as the Liberty Bell, initially resided atop the old Central School building. When the city determined that the fourth floor and the belfry were fire hazards, the bell lost its home.

Decades later, compliments of the London High School classes of 1945 and 1971, it found a new, more-worthy role in front of the school.

The bell, mounted on a brick pedestal, forms part of the memorial to the London High boys who have died in American wars. To date, the city’s daughters have escaped enshrinement there.

Affixed to the brick pedestal is a bronze plaque listing each conflict and the names of the men it claimed: Mabe, McSavaney, Turvy, Cunningham, Speasmaker — 33 in all. They represent London past, present and forever.

They were boys who swam in the public pool before me, drenched in the music of another era. Years and weather tarnished the plaque and the names lost their luster, but nature cannot diminish their sacrifice or our loss.

As a kid, the bell mystified me. I often studied the names while waiting for the traffic light at First and Oak streets to change.

Especially the names on the far right-hand side of the monument: A column of shiny names that starkly contrasted with the other, more weathered ones. In the 1970s, the recent additions might have belonged to members of my church or some of the kids who drag-raced their cars toward South Charleston on Friday nights.

These boys had died — and others were still dying — in Vietnam.

The brightest names haunted my mother more than the rest because they struck painfully close. My mother knew their mothers, and the boys were roughly the age of my oldest sister.

Mom made casseroles for their grieving families, tears mixing with the ingredients. Her empathy was so strong that it cloaked her like a drape. These boys were London, vibrant and promising, like her own little London guy.

In their living rooms, Mom grieved with other London ladies — part of a “Mothers’ Union,” a collective whose worst fears had been realized. Whenever she left the house with a Pyrex dish, choked beyond speaking with emotion, I knew that another shiny name would soon appear on the bell.

And the cycle continued, as it had for the names now tarnished. Each generation takes its turn with casseroles and mournful mothers’ gatherings, with each loss equally grievous as those preceding it.

Before the names of our neighbors appeared on the bronze plaque, the people behind those names roamed the neighborhood, smiling, laughing and sharing hugs. They were mechanics, athletes, altar boys, Boy Scouts and aspiring leaders. They were husbands and sweethearts whose love was lost too soon. They were going to be the town’s future; instead, they became inscriptions, whose loss forever changed the destiny of London and whose void cannot be filled.

Their passing, though, carried noble significance beyond the memories they left behind.

Along with all others who served, they guaranteed our ability to host barbecues and play Little League games, our right to rally and protest. Our rights and freedoms, purchased in part with the sacrifice of 33 London residents, are their legacy.

Considering that the population of London has rarely exceeded 10,000, the tariff levied on our town has been heavy.

Today, on Veterans Day, the memorial in the schoolyard takes on only added significance. It stands as a shrine to a small farming town, its people and their collective loss. It’s a tribute to devotion and determination, a monument repeated in hundreds of towns throughout Ohio and thousands of cities throughout the country

J Mark Jackson, 56, was born in raised in London and now lives in St. Augustine, Florida.

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